


where it bent in the undergrowth

by abcooper



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Sharing a Bed, happy birthday ashcakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-10-11 10:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10463019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abcooper/pseuds/abcooper
Summary: Lena chose their side in the end, and Kara is grateful for that. She's just not sure how to move past all the little betrayals and manipulations that led up to it





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ratherembarrassing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratherembarrassing/gifts).



> Happy birthday my little Ash-cakes!! *pinches ur cheeks* U requested forced-to-share-a-bed trope and I sat down to write like a 500 word ficlet and accidentally this. The rest of it is coming, sorry - next time give us all a little more birthday warning! :p

“It won't be for long,” Kara says, and risks a reassuring hand between Lena’s hunched shoulder blades. Lena tenses under her touch, and Kara removes it, trying not to be hurt. She knows how much Lena is struggling to maintain her composure. 

Lena turns to smile at her, and if Kara could ignore the dark circles under her eyes, the expression would be as smooth and practiced as ever. 

“I'm sorry,” she says. “I must seem terribly spoiled, wrinkling my nose at this place when it's going to save our lives.”

“I don't think that at all,” Kara answers truthfully. The safe house  _ is _ dingy, the wooden walls covered in a thin layer of gray rot, the furniture threadbare and dusty. It's not the kind of safehouse that's meant to blend in and hide through anonymity - it's the kind that no one’s meant to ever find, miles off any trail. The DEO can’t exactly send in a regular cleaning service. 

It's the perfect place for two women who are supposed to be dead.

Kara hefts their small bags into the living room, settling them neatly next to the questionable couch while Lena continues to stand by the doorway, apparently held in place. Kara has the thought that Lena is putting every ounce of willpower she has into maintaining the calm expression on her face, and there is simply no energy leftover to waste on moving her body forward. Kara considers guiding her over to sit, at least, but the musty scent coming off the couch is revolting. She thinks it used to have a paisley pattern before mold and mildew and time ate it away. Thinking of the clean lines and modernist decor in Lena’s office and apartment, she wonders briefly whether Lena would be more disgusted by it in its original colorful state than Kara is by it now. 

But that's unfair. Lena’s never been fussy. She's reserved, her mask so flawlessly pleasant that sometimes Kara is tempted to project onto it, to assume that Lena must look down on the cluttered handmade aesthetic of Kara’s living room. But if there’s one thing that has become clear to Kara in the past 24 hours, it’s that she doesn’t know Lena Luthor at all.

“Let's check out the kitchen,” Kara suggests. There's an archway to the left, across from the house’s entrance where Lena is still frozen, and Kara enters it, feeling around in the dimness until she finds a light switch to flick on. There's a slight uptick in the humming sound from the generator out back, and then the kitchen light flickers on, yellow and speckled with the shadows of dead bugs inside the fixture. 

Kara begins exploring the cupboards, pulling out sealed cans of rice and beans, protein bars, and MREs. She pulls the wrapper off a protein bar and shoves half of it into her mouth, suddenly realizing that she is desperately hungry, then turns to see that Lena has silently made her way over to the doorway and is watching her.

“Nothing gourmet, but we won't starve,” Kara says, speaking with her mouth full, and holds out a second protein bar in Lena’s direction. Lena’s lips twitch slightly.

“I'll pass for now,” she says. “I think I'd like to get some sleep.”

“Of course!” Kara agrees instantly. It's only about 9 at night, but there's no denying that Lena has had a trying day. “Lets check out the bed situation.” She hears the forced cheer in her voice and winces. Has she been speaking that way the whole time? 

She doesn't mean to. It's just that she doesn't really know what to say. 

Lena is her friend - she has been Kara’s friend since the moment Kara bounced into her office behind Clark and was dumbstruck by the sheer command of this woman her own age.

But she hasn't  _ just _ been Kara’s friend. She's been manipulating her. She's known Kara’s identity all along, she has lied a thousand times, she has taken advantage of Kara’s friendship to do questionable things.

And Kara  _ knows _ what it's like to love people who aren't on the right side. She knows that Lena was searching desperately for a way to do the right thing and still keep her family, she knows that Lena was in over her head, frightened, alone. She knows that when every other choice was gone, Lena had chosen the right side. Lena chose Kara. She's elated about that. She wants to hold Lena to her, wants to tell the world,  _ this one is ours now.  _

But she also knows that she has been Lena’s chess piece for the past six months, and that she hadn’t spotted it. Probably never would have spotted it if circumstances hadn't forced Lena to confess. 

She's happy and she's hurt. She’d sworn up and down that she knew the woman under Lena’s mask, defended her time and again on faith alone, and now she has to face the realization that she doesn't know her at all. 

But until the DEO can use Lena’s information to track down Lex, the world needs to believe that both of them are dead, which leaves Kara trapped indefinitely in the woods with a someone she'd been stupid enough to believe was her best friend. 

She doesn't know what to do, so she just leads the way into the bedroom. It’s small, the entirety of the room filled by the dingy full-sized bed, but Kara is relieved to slide open the door to a small linen closet and find clean sheets and blankets that have clearly been replaced far more recently than any of the furniture. 

“This could be worse,” she says, pulling out a fitted sheet to show Lena, and Lena nods fervently.

“If the bed was in the same state as the couch I was going to suggest sleeping outside,” she says dryly, and Kara grins at her.

“I like camping,” she answers, which is true, and together they get the sheets onto the bed.

Once they're done there's a beat of awkward silence before Kara says, “well, why don't I get you your bag and then leave you to it.”

“Don't be silly,” Lena says. “Obviously we’re both going to sleep in here.”

“Oh no, I'll take the couch,” Kara offers hastily, though the idea of putting her head anywhere near that smell is deeply unappealing. She suspects very strongly that Lena needs some privacy in which to cry. And although she'd never admit it, Kara is longing for some semblance of privacy as well - the mix of emotions Lena evokes in her is exhausting, and Kara is ready for a break.

“Please - you're not sleeping on that couch,” Lena says. “Ideally, neither of us are going to touch it the entire time we’re here. The bed’s more than large enough to share.” Then she stops, and something like uncertainty crossed her face. “Unless sharing with me would make you uncomfortable,” she adds, and Kara remembers how easy Lena has always found it to believe that others see her as a monster. 

Except - all the vulnerability Lena had shown her, all that trust they had built…. it had all turned out to be a lie, hadn't it? Why should she think now that she understands what Lena is feeling? This whole time she's believed exactly what Lena wants her to believe. She hates to see Lena so tentative, but there's some hurt part of her can't bear to be fooled again. 

She hesitates too long, and Lena seems to wilt. “Why don't I take the couch instead?” she says, and then looks doubtful. “Or maybe just spread some blankets on the floor.”

“No, let's share,” Kara decides abruptly. “You're right, there’s plenty of room, and these sheets are the only clean surface in the house.”

It's not letting herself be fooled again, it's just good sense. She doesn’t know what Lena is thinking or feeling. But even if her trust in their friendship is shattered, all of her trust in Lena’s intentions has been completely validated. There's no reason she can't sleep next to someone who may not be a friend, but who is undoubtedly an ally.

Lena smiles at her, and if it’s a little smaller than what Kara is accustomed to seeing from her, that's nothing that needs to be puzzled out tonight. 

\---

The bathroom is so disgusting that Kara gives up and relieves herself outside behind a convenient bush. She and Lena split a water bottle to brush their teeth when the water flows brown out of the tap, and then they settle themselves awkwardly in the bed.

“Goodnight, Kara,” Lena murmurs, and they put out the light.

Kara lies stiffly in the dark, trying to make sure that no part of her strays over onto Lena’s side of the bed. She doesn't feel tired on Earth the way that humans do - the way that she used to on Krypton as a child, that makes sleep a welcome relief. But she still needs sleep, and she doesn't usually have trouble sinking into it.

Tonight she can't; she is hyperaware of the woman next to her, of the scant space between their bodies. Niggling at the edges of her consciousness is the unending awareness that Alex and the DEO are continuing the fight without her, that they might get hurt without her there to protect them. And though she finds it shameful to be bothered under the circumstances, there is a low level of physical discomfort as well - the smell of mold that permeates the house, and the rustling of insects in the mattress beneath them that her supersenses won’t allow her to ignore. 

She's not sure how long she has been lying quietly in the dark when Lena’s breathing finally changes in quality, starts to hitch and shudder as Lena cries.

This isn't an act. Lena’s huddled misery is in no way for Kara’s benefit, she knows. In fact, Lena had probably held out until she felt certain that Kara was asleep before allowing herself even these silent, controlled tears. 

Lena had tried so hard. She had moved to National City, tracked Kara down, and befriended her. She had betrayed her own mother, allowed herself to be kidnapped and tortured. She'd played every side so carefully, used L Corp and Cadmus and the DEO as her pawns until finally she had the opportunity to rescue Lex from prison.

All of it because she had hoped, even through everything she'd seen, that if she got her brother away from it all, she could save him. 

And in the end, when Lex couldn't be saved, when he'd planned to continue his private war on the innocent, Lena had done the right thing and betrayed him to the DEO.

These quiet, shuddering sobs for her loss, for her failure - they are the sound of hopelessness and Kara wants to reach across the bed and pull Lena into her arms, wants to hold her close and promise her that even without her brother, Lena will never be alone again.

It isn't anger that stops her - it’s the memory of Lena shying away from her touch in the living room. Two weeks ago, Kara wouldn't have hesitated to comfort Lena, and she knows Lena would have accepted. But that was because Lena needed Kara to feel protective of her; needed Kara to be utterly convinced of Lena’s innocence when Lex disappeared out of his jail cell. 

The woman lying across from her on the bed isn’t who Kara thought she was, and there is no reason at all to think that Kara’s attempts at comfort would be welcome. Instead, Kara lies quietly in the dark and listens while Lena cries herself to sleep. 

***

When Kara wakes up, she is warm. She can feel sunlight across her face, and in her half-asleep state, the body pressed up against her own is perfect. Hadn't she been wanting to hold someone right before she fell asleep?

Memory slaps her the rest of the way awake and her eyes jolt open. At some point during the night Lena had shifted so that she is asleep practically on top of Kara, her face pressed into Kara’s neck. Their legs are tangled, one of Lena’s thighs pressing firmly between Kara’s legs in a way that Kara is mortified to find so pleasurable.

Carefully, she begins to untangle them, cradling Lena’s head and rolling over so that she can gently place her back on her own pillow. Lena makes a quiet noise of protest in her sleep as Kara pulls away, unhooking Lena’s legs from her own. Her forehead crinkles, and she rolls back toward Kara, unconsciously seeking lost warmth.

Unable to help herself, Kara runs a gentle hand through Lena’s hair, soothing her. Perhaps in her sleep Lena had reached out for the closest available comfort, even from a person that she would never accept it from awake. There’s nothing wrong with Kara giving her that, surely.

She strokes Lena’s hair one more time, and feels tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. She  _ hates _ this, hates navigating this stranger wearing her friend’s face. Hasn't she faced enough loss, enough betrayal in her life? Couldn't Rao have allowed her to have just this one thing?

She forces herself to get up, and leaves the room without looking back. 

The living room is even more dismal in the full light of day. Kara digs through the small bag Alex had packed for her as they hurried to go into hiding - to let Lex believe his move had been successful, that Lena and Kara had both been killed and that he was free to continue as planned. Anything else would have meant that Lena’s inside information was meaningless, as Lex altered his plans in response. As long as he believed they were dead, the DEO knew exactly where to find him next. That was a lot more valuable than having a Super in the fight. 

Knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to sit this one out. Kara digs through the bag for clean clothing to put on, before doing a quick count. Alex has 3 days to find Lex before Kara is forced to either find a way to do laundry here or to wear dirty underwear. She is also pathetically grateful to find that despite a lack of time or space, Alex has included Kara’s smallest sketchbook and a set of pencils. No doubt Alex had understood that with nothing to do but wait and worry, Kara would go crazy by the first afternoon.

Dressed, she takes a moment to check the encrypted, low-energy pager that is currently her only tie to the outside world. Lex is too good with technology for them to bring a phone or comm, Lena had assured them - there had to be  _ nothing _ for him to discover. In their place, Winn has provided them with this pager, too small and low-tech to be detected through the noise of normal air traffic. It is nothing but an LED in a black case, currently shining red. If Lex is captured and they have the all-clear, it will shift to green. If plans change and Kara or Lena is needed back in the fray, it will shift to blue. There is no other information - no way to check in, no way for Alex to reassure Kara that she is still alive or give her any sort of update.

“If Alex is hurt, you shift it to blue,” Kara had told Winn before she left. “I don’t care what the circumstances are, I don’t care if coming back will ruin  _ everything _ \- if my sister is hurt, you call me.”

She has to believe that Winn will do what she asked, anything else is too much to bear. She can't rid herself entirely of her doubt; Winn has started to become an excellent DEO agent. 

She stares for a moment longer at the red light, and then tucks it into her pocket and goes into the kitchen. The food situation is less boring than it appeared at first - in a cupboard over the stove she finds dehydrated eggs, powdered milk, and instant coffee in airtight containers. She turns on the kitchen tap and is relieved to see that unlike the bathroom, the water comes out clear. The kitchen’s supply of water bottles wouldn't have held out even as long as the underwear. Still, it does have a slight smell, and Kara resolves to boil it within an inch of its life before she lets Lena have any. 

She listens with enhanced hearing for a moment; Lena’s breathing is still deep and even in sleep, so Kara only makes eggs for herself, limiting herself to two servings and dumping them over a can of black beans. The texture is like chewing on a sponge, but the taste isn’t bad. She skips the limited supply of coffee, deciding that Lena’s need is undoubtedly going to be greater than her own. Also, there’s no sugar that she can find, and Kara’s not convinced that there’s any point to unsweetened coffee. 

Eating improves her mood an inexpressible amount. Thanks to Lena’s inside information, the DEO’s chances against Lex are the best they’ve been since his escape. And, yeah - it hurts that the closeness she’d felt with Lena, the tentative stirring of something, was one sided when she had dared to hope otherwise. But Lena has chosen to do the right thing. Kara is just going to focus on that.

It doesn’t take much exploring before she finds a broom closet with a few cleaning products, most of them well past their expiration dates. The furniture and walls are a lost cause, but she dumps bleach and hot water into into a bucket and pulls out the mop. If she can get the floor into a state where she wouldn’t be disgusted to walk on it barefoot, she’ll call the morning a success.

She checks the pager embarrassingly often, but it stays stubbornly red, and Lena stays stubbornly asleep. Kara is refreshing the water in her bucket a fourth time for one final wash when she finally hears stirring from the other room. She sets the chore aside and instead gets the breakfast supplies back out.  When Lena appears fifteen minutes later, hair tousled and face creased with sleep, Kara is able to hand her a mug of coffee, eggs on the stove.

“You’re a godsend,” Lena mutters, downing a third of the mug in one go, though it’s barely below boiling.

“You slept for  _ ages _ ,” Kara can’t resist informing her.

“I had a fair amount of catching up to do,” Lena answers, and Kara hears the unspoken bitterness in her voice. All those sleepless nights hadn’t exactly paid off.

They fall into silence for a long moment, Lena staring down at her coffee mug while Kara busies herself getting the eggs onto a plate.

“I see you’ve cleaned. It looks better,” Lena says abruptly, and Kara can hear the awkwardness in her voice. Is this strangeness between them as miserable for Lena as it is for her? She can’t imagine that it’s  _ pleasant  _ to have your cover blown. But she can’t imagine that it hurts the same way, either - after all, unlike Kara, Lena had known the truth about their relationship the whole time.

  
Kara had promised herself she’d try, though. So she smiles and swallows her feelings and hands Lena her eggs. “Most of it is beyond my skill,” she says. “I thought about seeing if I could get my laser vision low enough to burn the rot off the walls without setting the whole place on fire…”

Lena laughs, a strained little sound, but it’s something. “Maybe this isn’t the time to experiment,” she suggests wryly. And then, looking as though she’s held out as long as she possibly could, she adds, “no word?”

“I’d have told you right away if there was,” Kara promises, holding up the pager. “No news is good news at this point - if everything’s going to plan, the DEO shouldn’t even be striking until tonight.”

Somehow, saying it to Lena feels far more believable than saying it to herself. 

“I know,” Lena says. “I just don’t like the waiting, I suppose. I’ve never been a patient person.”

“Well I  _ know _ that’s not true,” Kara says, and regrets it as she sees Lena wilt a little. “I didn’t mean…. you just seem to have played a long game here,” she admits, because she  _ had  _ meant it the way Lena took it. It’s hard to believe Lena about her own impatience when she has spent the past six months lying to Kara every stupid day as part of a plan that was years in the making. And Kara thinks it’s understandable that she’s not feeling especially tolerant of any more lies, no matter how harmless they are.

“I’ve had to learn patience,” Lena says. “That doesn’t mean I’m ever going to like it.”

“Me neither,” Kara agrees shortly. Abruptly she can’t bear to be in this kitchen with Lena anymore, can’t even bear to look at her. “I’m going to finish mopping,” she mutters and pushes herself away from the counter.

“Kara -” Lena starts helplessly, but her voice trails off, and Kara flees.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am very bad about answering comments, but thank you for all the nice things you guys said on chapter 1, you are wonderful and i love you <3
> 
> Ashcakes, happy birthday again, only now ur birthday was like a month ago! Happy random day several weeks after your birthday!

 Kara devotes most of the day to cleaning the bathroom. That's not just an avoidance tactic - she really does want a usable shower. The part where she doesn’t use superspeed, though - that serves the sole purpose of keeping her alone in the tiny bathroom, away from her companion.

It’s therapeutic, moderating her super-strength as she scrubs layers of mold, dirt, and rust away from tiles and pipes, careful not to crack anything. It reminds her of the control exercises that Jeremiah did with her when she first arrived on Earth, games where she squeezed water balloons without popping them until she could be trusted to hug Alex without breaking any bones. There's nothing she can do about the brown water stains down the shower curtain or the way that mold has eaten away at the caulking, but when she finishes, the bathroom is usable. She turns on the shower and the water comes out brown, but she leaves it running and after a few minutes it clears. Even more exciting, it gets warm, surpassing Kara’s wildest expectations. 

She treats herself to a short shower, mindful of the fact that the hot water is probably a very limited treat. Dressed, clean of muck, and with no further excuse, goes into the living room, where she can hear Lena’s quiet heartbeat. 

Lena is sprawled on the floor, playing with a faded chess board that she’s unearthed from somewhere. The pager is set up next to her, its light unrelentingly red. The plastic chess pieces are cracked and lop-sided, but Lena is staring at them intently, her eyes distant, and Kara takes the opportunity to drink her in.

Lena is beautiful. No matter how many lunches they have together, how many times Lena has put a casual arm around her shoulders or snorted gracelessly as she laughed, Kara has never quite managed to stop being stunned by her. When she’d thought Lena was her friend, thought that this gorgeous, intelligent,  _ complicated  _ woman looked at her and saw an equal, Kara hadn’t minded that Lena stunned her. She’d even nurtured a secret, private hope - something that got a little stronger every time Lena’s casual touches lingered. She’d glanced at herself in the mirror in the mornings, traced her hands curiously down her body, and wondered if it was possible that she ever stunned Lena back. 

She’d never done that before, really. She’d sometimes gone stammering and nervous in front of boys she’d liked. And with Cat…. Cat had made fun of her outfits with that exaggerated pettiness that assured Kara of how much her appearance didn’t matter in the face of everything else Cat valued about her. 

But the awed, stuttering lust that Lena ignited in her was something new, and so was the quiet confidence that she’d been growing in herself. She’d seen the way Lena’s eyes followed her, the intense focus that Lena always seemed to have for her, and she’d dared to believe that maybe the interest was mutual.  

Now, seeing the intent way that Lena is eyeing the chess pieces in front of her, Kara thinks that the intensity probably wasn’t even part of the act. It’s just how Lena  _ is _ . She’d needed Kara to trust her, yes, but she hadn’t set out to seduce her. The little fantasy Kara had created around them is entirely self-made, and Kara can’t decide whether that’s more or less humiliating than thinking Lena had tricked her into it.

“Where’d you find that?” Kara asks, to break the silence and let Lena know she’s in the room. Lena smiles up at her, a hesitant expression.

“Hello. It was in the cupboard, there are a few other boardgames too. Interested in a game of scrabble?” 

Kara laughs lightly, and is grateful for the suggestion. She realizes abruptly that having something to do, even something as mundane as a game, comes as a relief. Part of why she’d avoided coming out of the bathroom all day was that she was expecting to spend the afternoon sitting near Lena in awkward silence, or stuttering through some kind of confession. Scrabble sounds like much more solid ground on which to find their footing.  

“I should warn you,” she says, “I’m  _ excellent  _ at games. I have a friend named Lucy who swears that I somehow use x-ray vision to cheat at charades.” 

Lena laughs too, and Kara’s pretty sure their relief is mutual. “And do you?” she inquires casually, and Kara gives her an exaggerated wink. 

“Sorry, that’s classified.” 

The scrabble board turns out to be missing over half its tiles. “How about chess?” Kara suggests idly. She doesn’t miss the way Lena flinches, and hastily tries, “or we could count the cards in this deck - have you ever played Russian Bank?” 

“No, chess is fine,” Lena insists firmly. “It’s just a game. A game I like.”

Kara isn’t stupid. She’d bet anything that Lena used to play chess with Lex as a child. But Lena is already pulling the board across the floor between them, moving the pieces into starting position, and Kara knows as well as anyone how fruitless it is to put the shattered pieces of your grief aside and cordon them off from the rest of your life, so she sprawls on the floor across the board from Lena and  begins arranging pawns. 

They start out rapidly - Kara can tell from the fast, methodical way Lena starts that she’s one of those people who has memorized strategies, has maybe read books about the advantages of six different chess openings. 

Secretly, Kara has always found chess a little boring. Her brain is as superpowered as the rest of her on Earth, though she tries not to mention it. Somehow that part seems even more awkward to cop to than having the power of flight. It’s just that her neurons are as indestructible as the rest of her, and they hold information a little longer here on Earth than they had at home. 

She knows that Eliza and Jeremiah had run tests on her brain when she first came to Earth. They had theorized quietly, before they understood the full extent of her superhearing, that her brain was what would eventually kill her. “Her mind won’t self-regulate the way healthy human brains do - hard to predict what will happen as she reaches some kind of capacity - may end up being her main biological limitation-”

Kara plays chess the way a computer plays chess. She runs through all the possible paths and picks the best one. It lacks the cleverness or strategy that a human player might implement. It’s like playing tic-tac-toe - she knows the outcomes. Overall, she doesn’t mind, but she prefers playing Charades. 

Lena focuses intently on the game and they play in silence, the quality of light in the room changing slowly as afternoon slips toward evening. About an hour in, Lena gives a slight intake of breath, and Kara knows she’s seen it.

“You’re going to win,” Lena says, and Kara laughs a little at how surprised Lena sounds. 

“Yeah,” she agrees. “From about six moves back.” 

“Well,” Lena laughs. “I’ve never seen the point in continuing to play once I’m beaten.” She says it lightly, with no intended double-meaning, as she flicks her king over in a symbol of surrender, but then there’s a beat of silence where Lena goes pale and the second meaning sinks in anyways.    
  
“Dinner?” Kara suggests, trying to shake it off. She stands, ready to push the awkwardness off for another hour by digging through the cupboards. Lena doesn’t stand with her.

“I know you hate me,” she says abruptly, with such misery in her tone that Kara can’t believe it’s anything but genuine. “And Kara, I know - I know that I deserve it, for what I did. I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I wanted Lex back, and I wanted to keep you, and there was no way for me to have everything, but I had to _try_. I tried to keep both of you, and instead I lost both of you. And there’s no going back, I’ve got to live with the decisions I made. But you have to know that I wouldn’t ever, in a million years, have wanted to hurt you.”   

Kara sits back down. There’s a chess board and a lot of history between them, and she doesn’t want to face this - she has faced an unbearable amount of loss in the past, but at least she’s rarely had to face it so head on. 

“I don’t hate you, Lena,” she says helplessly. “I just - don’t know you. And I thought I knew you better than anyone else on this planet.” 

“You do,” Lena whispers. “I swear you do.” Kara wants to believe it - she wants to pull Lena into her arms and hold onto her, because her friend is hurting  _ so much. _

“Do you remember that time, like… two weeks ago,” she says instead. “We were supposed to have lunch, and when I came by to pick you up you were in the middle of this absolute temper tantrum about that overseas investor, remember, the one who got drunk and told you that your breasts were the best part of doing business with you?”

“I remember,” Lena assures her darkly, and Kara laughs, surprising herself with how wet the sound is. It’s not like she’s crying. 

“Right - and instead of going out to Chloe’s Vegan Eats, I got us takeout from that amazing mexican restaurant with the giant fried burritos, and you told me there was no way you were going to put that into your body and then you devoured the whole thing and fell asleep with your head in my lap, and I called Snapper and told him I was following up leads so that I wouldn’t have to wake you up.” 

Lena nods silently, and there’s something like longing in her eyes. Kara wants to just let it go and tell her that they can get back to that, that she hasn’t lost everything. But saying it can’t make it true, so instead she pushes forward.

“I keep thinking of moments like that, all the little moments where I thought I was discovering the real you. And I wonder - did you actually want that burrito, or did you want to charm me by eating it? Were you actually even asleep? Did you -” her voice hitches at the humiliation of saying, “did you actually want your head on my lap, or were you trying to encourage my crush on you?” 

Lena looks stunned. “Kara -” she starts, and looks uncertain.

“I really want to know,” Kara begs. “I’ll try to believe you, if you'll tell me - which parts of that day were really you, and which parts were you manipulating me?” 

“I don’t know, alright?” Lena wipes furiously at her eyes, though there’s no evidence of tears in them. “You want to pull it apart, like there’s a real me somehow separate from any manipulation. I’m a Luthor, and aside from all the murder and all the blood on my family’s hands, that’s what it really means, Kara. We’re manipulators - chess players. I can’t tell you why I wanted my head in your lap, whether it was for a manipulation or for some purer purpose - I don’t know where you draw that line, it’s not a line that has ever existed in my mind. I do things that will get me what I want, and that  _ is  _ the real me.” 

It’s all the confirmation Kara has never wanted, that she’s been trying to avoid by cleaning the bathroom and playing chess and making eggs. It’s a promise that no matter how this situation turns out, Lena is never going to be the person Kara thought she was, is never going to be the person Kara might have - 

“Well, I guess that answers my question, then,” Kara says shakily, and flees. 

 

**

She doesn’t go far - they’ve only got the one pager. Kara won’t wander off into the woods and miss the signal that Alex needs her, and she won't be cruel enough to take it with her and leave Lena wondering. But she walks around the perimeter, within easy shouting distance if anything happens. She trusts Lena to call for her if anything changes - trusts her more than she trusts Winn to actually send the signal, in fact.  

She also cries a bit. Not as much or as angrily as she could - the tears feel almost unrelated to the hurricane that is muted inside her. It’s there, huge and immutable, and she skirts mentally around it, unready to face the full force of this newest loss. 

She tries to think of other things instead, but there’s so little to think about that’s happy. It hits her suddenly how empty her life is. How unhappy she feels at her job, how worried she is about Alex but also how _lonely_ she is, now that Alex has Maggie and needs her a little less. It’s pathetic, that there are so few people in her life that she can’t afford to share them. Or to find out that they aren’t hers at all.  

She wonders, in a strike of inspiration, how Cat is doing, where she might be through all this. Is she still staying in a yurt? Kara doesn’t think so, but she doubts that Cat is anywhere pampered and luxurious either. It’s not what she’d gone looking for. Maybe she’s ended up following some new story, tracking down sources of corruption in South Africa, or chasing down leads on some human trafficking ring.

It’s a safe thought to linger on. Kara misses Cat, but it doesn’t hurt in all the same ways - she trusts Cat to come back to her. There’s no overwhelming fear of loss, not when Cat has been gone now for almost a whole year, and the occasional emails and sassy texts keep trickling in.  

When it starts to get dark, and Kara’s stomach has started to rumble incessantly, she goes back inside. The pager is sitting in the kitchen now, evidence that Lena has eaten, and the light is still shining red. Kara takes her time eating seven protein bars - they’re not bad, really, she doesn’t understand why Alex always complains about them. They’re chocolate coated and chewy - who doesn’t like chocolate? 

There’s no sign of Lena. She must have gone to bed early to avoid further conversation, and Kara is grateful. She gets ready herself, and takes the pager with her into the bedroom.

 Lena is sprawled across the bed. Her skin is pale in the moonlight, her mouth hanging open. Kara doesn’t think she’s faking it - Lena prefers to look dignified, when she can manage. She’s kicked the blanket to the bottom of the bed, and her hair is streaked across her face. A sob makes its way out of Kara’s throat, unexpected. She gets it under control and climbs into the bed, gently rearranging Lena’s limbs to make space so that she can settle comfortably onto the ancient mattress. She firmly shoves her thoughts to the side, counting her breaths until she falls into an uneasy sleep.

When she wakes up, unknown minutes or hours later, she isn’t sure what has awoken her, and the thought sends her into a panic - has something gone wrong? But the light on the pager is still glowing red against the pitch-black night, as expected. It’s only after she has reassured herself that she notices the warm body huddled in her arms.

Lena has pressed up against her in her sleep again. Her face is buried in Kara’s shoulder, her mouth open and hot against Kara’s collarbone. It’s incongruous with the way they left things, but in the darkness, it’s warm and comfortable and safe, and Kara lets herself fall into it - lets herself have this illusory closeness. She threads her fingers through Lena’s hair, shifting so that Lena is in her arms properly, her head arranged more comfortably on Kara’s chest. Kara pets her in sleepy, soothing strokes, and sets longing and wistfulness to the side, taking comfort in the moment. 

She’s halfway back to sleep herself when she realizes that Lena’s breathing has subtly changed, her heartbeat increased. She’s awake. Chastened, Kara pulls her hand away, tries with her body language to pretend that she’s been doing this in her sleep. Lena doesn’t pull away, though - instead she shifts, almost nuzzling Kara’s skin as she tucks herself in closer, her head under Kara’s chin and her arm coming up to circle Kara’s waist. Tentatively, Kara resumes her stroking, and Lena gives a long sigh, relaxing into the motion. 

Are they going to lie here and both pretend to be asleep, pretend that this is happening unconsciously and has nothing to do with their waking life? Lena said she only does things that will get her what she wants. But what  _ does _ she want? Her brother is gone, and Kara is out of ways to help her, so why would Lena want to be in her arms in the middle of the night? It’s a crucial piece of the puzzle.

Kara looks down at her, and tries to summon the courage to ask. Lena is already looking back, and their eyes meet through the dark.

“You said you have a crush on me,” she murmurs, not breaking eye contact. Her voice is deep, roughened by sleep, but there’s something thoughtful about it too. Kara’s not the only one struggling to understand their relationship, she realizes.

“Does that bother you?” she asks, pulling her hand away from Lena’s hair in case the answer is yes. She doesn’t want Lena to feel - to feel taken advantage of, she supposes. Whatever else, she hopes Lena knows that she will always be  _ safe _ with Kara.

“It definitely does not bother me,” Lena answers, something indefinable in her tone, and then she’s shifting, tilting her head and leaning forward and Kara’s brain is still scrabbling to catch up when Lena brings their mouths together, capturing Kara’s lips with her own.  

It’s electrifying. Lena’s mouth is hot and wet and tastes a little like morning breath, and she keeps it still against Kara’s for a long minute, not pushing any further, just letting Kara feel her intention. Her entire body is pressed against Kara’s side, soft and curved in a way that Kara cannot comprehend, and everything else grinds to a halt as Lena’s hand comes up and cups Kara’s cheek, slowly pulling back.

“I, uh - well that’s -” she stutters, trying frantically to come up with a response, and Lena laughs, low and fond, and leans back in for a second kiss that is no longer gentle, that is almost an assault in its passion. She takes Kara’s lower lip briefly between her teeth, and then pulls away momentarily while she shifts, sitting up in one smooth motion and straddling Kara’s stomach, her hands on Kara’s shoulders. 

It’s incredible, like something out of a fantasy, and Kara comes to her senses with a dim sense of horror. “Lena, stop,” she says, and then almost begging, “get off of me please.” 

Lena freezes, and then rolls to the side. “I’m sorry,” she says distantly. “I shouldn’t have done that. I... thought maybe you wanted me to.”   
  


“I know you thought that,” Kara says quietly. “I told you that I did earlier. And I know that you want me to forgive you. I wouldn’t -” her voice hitches, because this is the most miserable thing she’s ever had to do, but she thinks she has put the puzzle pieces together at last. “You said you don’t really see a difference between doing what you want and doing what will _get_ you what you want, but there is a difference, with this. I couldn’t live with myself if you did this without wanting it. I don’t want that to be what I am in your life, Lena.”  

Lena doesn’t answer for a minute, but Kara can see the dark outline of her form, sees the way that Lena is curled in on herself.

“But you do want me?” she finally asks, almost childish in the need for reassurance. 

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” Kara tells her honestly. “I had no idea what people meant by wanting until I met you. You - you stunned me, lit something up inside me. I wanted to be around you all the time, wanted to touch you, wanted to  _ know  _ you.”

 “Past tense, though,” Lena notes. “You don’t feel that way about me anymore.” 

“What do  _ you _ want?” Kara asks her gently. “Manipulating isn’t going to get you there anymore, but honesty might. I still want you to be happy, Lena. That’s never going to change.”  

“I think what I really want is to be the kind of person that someone like Kara Danvers can love.” Lena says quietly. She sounds resigned, and Kara’s heart shatters along new and different lines. She wants this to be the moment of reconciliation, wants to assure Lena that there is nothing wrong with her, and that Kara will  _ always _ love her. She wants to be sure that it’s true, to have back her faith in the love between them. Unfortunately, she and Lena are agreed on one thing - wanting it isn’t quite enough to make it true.

“Look, can we just - can we save this for tomorrow?” she asks desperately. “Can we have four more hours where we…” she reaches for Lena, pulls her stiff form gently back into her arms. Lena stays frozen for another moment and then abruptly slumps against her, letting Kara arrange their bodies together like when they’d pretended to be asleep. Kara feels tears against her chest as Lena’s body begins to shake, wracked by the kind of heavy, loud sobbing that she never allows herself. Helpless, Kara holds her close in the dark.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK so, sorry your birthday present took 6 months to get to you ashcakes, but i hope you feel the love <3
> 
> many thanks to spaceshipsarecool, the goddess of editing, who put a lot of work into rescuing this chapter for me o.o

The second time Kara wakes up it’s still dark out, but a different quality dark - dawn is about to break. Kara thinks for a groggy moment that she’s woken because Lena has rolled out of her arms, and she mourns the loss, feeling the chill of the night air where she’d previously been pressed up against a warm body. Then she sees the blue light shining in the darkness, and shifts abruptly into full wakefulness.

“Lena,” she shakes the sleeping figure next to her. “We need to go back, something’s gone wrong. The pager.”

Lena jolts awake with none of Kara’s slowness, and they move seamlessly through the dark, throwing on clothes and gear. Kara wastes no time on ceremony, pulling Lena into her arms and taking off into the night sky probably less than three minutes after they’d woken up. There is no time to acknowledge her panic, and no surprise at all, although Alex had described the operation as ‘foolproof’. On some level, Kara has been waiting for this. It’s almost a relief that the moment is here.

She hears a sharp gasp as she accelerates, and then Lena’s arms wrap around Kara’s neck like a lifeline.

“Are you alright?” Kara shouts, but she doesn’t slow down, and she’s not sure Lena can even hear her through the rushing wind. How fast can she travel with Lena in her arms? She knows how fast human bodies can safely accelerate, but she doesn’t know what speed she can get to before the wind resistance starts to do damage, before it might shove Lena’s head back hard enough to snap her neck. This suddenly seems like a grave oversight - they’re about 100 miles out from National City. On her own, Kara could fly it in about four minutes - without risking the life in her arms, it’s going to take her more like forty.

Lena seems alright - her head is tucked into Kara’s collar, her heart beating rapidly from adrenaline, but not, Kara thinks, from any kind of mortal pain. She’s become intimately familiar with how that sounds. She risks going just a bit faster, confident that Lena would make the same call if she paused to ask her about it. The minutes tick painfully by as Kara races the first rays of the rising sun.

They come within hearing range of the warehouse Lena had tipped them off to, and Kara’s stomach drops at the grim silence. Whatever went wrong, it wasn’t at the planned scene of battle. That or they’re too late.

She flies onward, and comes through the drone entrance to the DEO’s desert location only moments later.

This branch of the DEO is buried 30 stories below ground and lined with lead, which means she can’t hear or see through it from a distance like she can elsewhere, but the noise of chaos still reaches her at least four stories before her feet hit the ground in the large landing bay, and it’s immediately clear why Winn called her back: the DEO is under attack.

Kara doesn’t wait to get her bearings - she gets the drop on a man in CADMUS uniform, swinging around using the force of her forward momentum to shove him over a railing with a hard kick. The sound of crunching bone reaches her ears as he lands, and she makes a note that not all of these soldiers are enhanced - although that’s no guarantee that none of them are.

Only then does she set Lena down. Lena clutches at her shoulder for just a moment, pale and terrified, and Kara runs a brief hand down her cheek.

“There’s a secondary command center through here, one door, very bullet proof. It doesn’t look as though it’s been compromised yet -” she says, although she knows the truth is that there’s nowhere safe right now for Lena to hide.

“Don’t be stupid,” Lena says, and picks up the gun that Kara’s first opponent had dropped. Kara’s chest hollows out.

“Lena -” she starts, ready to remind her that just because she can handle herself in a tense situation doesn’t mean she’s trained to survive throwing herself into what has clearly dissolved into a full-on melee, DEO agents and CADMUS agents throwing themselves at each other with no structure or plan of attack.

She doesn’t get to finish. Something hits her from behind, and Kara turns to face a woman with glowing eyes, deflecting the next shot from her gun with an easy swipe. 

It takes up her attention - Kara thinks the woman is a genuine alien, not an experiment, and she doesn’t understand why someone would side with their own destruction, but by the time Kara takes her out, four more soldiers are coming her way  and she doesn’t know where Lena has gone. She can’t worry about that now.

What makes the most sense is to find the center of the battle - she needs to find her way to Alex and J’onn, she needs to find her way to Lex if he’s even here. Aside from the fact that every cell in her body is  _ demanding _ to know where her sister is, she needs information. She needs a plan that has a little more to it than just picking off soldiers one by one. These people are Lex’s cannon fodder - they’re the distraction, even if they’re a good one. Alex will know what to do.

It’s easier said than done. The landing bay that Kara flew into is a wide two-story space, probably the most open space in the DEO, with a railed second-floor walkway going around it. Cover is slim, CADMUS soldiers are thick on the ground, and everywhere she looks, there’s a DEO agent on the brink of losing the battle. Kara knows she can’t save everyone, but she also can’t just fly off when there are bullets that only she can safely deflect, and the DEO is outnumbered 2 to 1. She heads for the exit multiple times, only to find herself swooping back down to block fire, to take out combatants, and finally she accepts that she has to get the situation here under control first and switches gears.

The melee is untenable. Alex - she dismisses the pang that she  _ can’t think about now _ \- would tell her to take control of the high ground, to make sure her forces couldn’t be surrounded, to set up cover, to provide crossfire.

She grabs Agent Vasquez out from under two enhanced CADMUS soldiers and drops her onto the walkway, right where she’d initially landed.

“Do we have comms?” she asks, and Vasquez shakes her head.

“First sign of attack was communications coming down,” she shouts back. “Their forces came in fast and hard before we had any chance to regroup.” Kara nods, suspicion confirmed. If Alex or J’onn or even Susan had the ability to communicate, there’d be a strategy being enacted.

“OK, new plan - I bring you agents, you tell them what to do,” Kara says, and takes off again.

She focuses on grabbing agents who are separated from the bulk of DEO forces, dropping them off next to Vasquez, trusting that with a clear view and agents to do her bidding, Susan will get things under control. Slowly, the shape of the battle shifts - other agents see what’s happening and fight their way over, until the 50-odd DEO agents in the room have cohered into a single force. The fight becomes disciplined, and the CADMUS agents, though they have greater numbers, begin to fall back, and then to just fall. They’re untrained, unprepared for anything other than a one-on-one fight.

“You’ve got to go,” Susan shouts as Kara does another fly-by, and Kara knows they’re seeing the same thing - that these aren’t CADMUS’ most elite agents, and that this  _ isn’t  _ the main event.

Doors between DEO sections are locked immediately in the event of a breach, and at least some of them have successfully been activated. The nearest hallway has a heavy metal shutter across the door, which Kara opens with sheer brute force and then pushes back into place. She speeds down the hall, and tries to ignore the fact that she has no idea where Lena is.

The noises of battle are coming faintly through from all directions, and Kara thinks frantically. Where Lex will be depends on what his goal is - does he want to take the DEO entirely? She needs more information - she heads toward the science labs, turning the tide on skirmishes here and there as she comes across them. The picture it forms isn’t good - however they’d gotten in, CADMUS had come in overwhelming numbers, and the DEO had been caught unprepared. Although most spaces aren’t wide enough for the full-on battle that Kara had left behind, there is fighting everywhere, and CADMUS has the upper hand in most of it.

“Kara!” she wheels as she hears Winn’s voice, and sees him - of course, in the communications hub, undoubtedly trying to restore it.

“Where’s Alex?” she demands.

“Last I saw, in her lab,” he answers immediately. “I’m trying to get communication back, I think I can, they attacked with-”

“Keep trying,” she tells him shortly, and takes off again. The fighting is starting to die off - she finds fewer hallway skirmishes, and flies over more bodies instead. The glass walls of the laboratories are shattered, and a high voice echoes through them before coming into sight.

“I’m going to give you one more opportunity Agent Danvers,” it says. “Tell me where to find my sister, or I’m afraid I shall simply have to kill you and wrest it directly from your computer.”

“Lena’s dead, remember?” comes Alex’s voice, taunting but slurred. “You killed her yourself, Lex. Are you so crazy that you don’t even know who you’ve shot anymore?”

Kara doesn’t wait to hear his reply - her brain shuts down completely at the sound of Alex, clearly injured. Nothing matters but getting to her. Kara speeds into the lab, ready to take him down however she has to. As she flies over the threshold, there’s a  _ shiver _ , and she slams into the ground.

“ _ Supergirl! _ ” that’s Alex’s voice, but it’s distorted somehow - like being underwater. Is she swimming? Kara tries to figure out where the surface of the water is so she can get to it and answer Alex properly, but that’s not right, she’s just on the ground isn’t she?

“Oh, it’s the younger Danvers sister, how bothersome,” Lex says, and something about that isn’t right, he’s not supposed to call her that, but before Kara can really think it through, he continues, “I suppose this little tete a tete is over,” and points a gun at Alex’s head.

Kara tries to struggle upright, but she can’t do it, she can’t do  _ anything,  _ and when she hears the gunshot a cry is ripped from her throat. She is helpless against the certainty that she has finally managed to destroy Alex’s life in the most final and permanent sense. The world becomes a chasm.

Lex crumples to the ground, and Alex rises shakily to her feet. Kara can’t comprehend for a moment, and then she follows Alex’s line of sight to the doorway. Lena is there, a gun in her hands. She turns and shoots it into the side of the door - a round device shatters, and suddenly Kara can breathe again, can think. She doesn’t waste time dissecting the sequence of events.

“Alex!” she scrambles to reach her sister, frantically looking her over. Her ribs are cracked, but she’s alive, she’s flawless, and Kara heaves a relieved sob and kisses her forehead.

“I’m OK,” Alex says, runs a reassuring hand down Kara’s arm, her fingers digging in hard, and for a moment, they cling.

Then Kara looks back up. Lena is still standing in the door, motionless. Her eyes are dry and blank as she gazes almost dispassionately at Lex’s corpse on the floor. It was a messy shot - into the cheekbone, Kara thinks. Lex’s face has caved in.

She looks at Lena who is looking at Lex, and for a brief moment, she knows her perfectly.

“Lena,” she says. “We need to get communication back - Winn could use your help.”

“Take me to him,” Lena says, her voice as flat as the expression on her face. Kara does.

**

After that, it’s easy. Communications are back up, which means fighting can be coordinated. The casualties from the initial chaos are high, but the DEO regains control of the situation in a matter of hours.

“This was a desperate attempt,” Alex points out later, as they supervise the containment of the surviving CADMUS agents. Her voice is still raspy, and there’s a purple bruise peeking up through her shirt collar. “Lex has crippled CADMUS, coming at us with everything he had - if we follow up on this, we might be able to get Lillian and the entire organization.”

“I agree,” J’onn says, eyeing her from the side. “We will begin planning a counter-strike immediately. You, however, are not going to take part. You’re going to get your ribs looked at, and then go home and rest.”

“Like hell -” Alex begins, and Kara puts a hand on her shoulder.

“Alex, please,” she says, and lets her exhaustion show. “Just for tonight - we’ll come back tomorrow.” J’onn glares at her and she amends her statement, adding, “To help with the planning, at least. It’s going to take more than a day to track down Lillian.”

“Alright, fine - one night,” Alex concedes. Kara expects it to be a concession to sibling concern, but when she looks at Alex, Alex is looking toward Lena, who is sitting in a chair behind a computer, staring blankly into nothingness. “We’ll make sure Luthor gets home safe.”

“Under the circumstances, I’m not sure -” J’onn begins, and then stops again. Presumably whatever he sees in Alex’s mind convinces him, because he angles a sidelong glance at Kara and just nods.

“Get out of here, all three of you,” he says.

Kara drops Alex off at the infirmary because she doesn’t trust that Alex will actually end up there otherwise, and then gets wrapped up in the myriad tasks being busily completed around her. There’s always another person asking for help. Kara lifts broken equipment, forces open broken doors, and before she can register it, an hour goes by and Kara still hasn’t gone back for Lena like she intended. She finally excuses herself, polite but firm, but when she gets to the comm center where Lena had been situated, she has been replaced in the chair by Winn, who is working on what Kara suspects is protection against whatever clever way CADMUS had found to infiltrate their systems.

“Hey - you did good,” she tells him, dropping a warm hand onto his shoulder, and he leans into it for just a moment before shrugging her off, typical in the way that he desires and veers away from affection.

“Yeah, that was a wild ride, huh?” he says. “Once again the day is saved!” They share a grin, and then Kara asks in as casual a tone as she can manage, “where’s Lena? Wasn’t she here a moment ago?”

Winn’s smile falters. “Oh, uh, yeah, she took off, said she was heading home - was she not supposed to? I mean, I just assumed - she’s one of the good guys now, right?”

“No, it’s fine,” Kara assures him. It  _ is _ fine, isn’t it? She knows J’onn sent people to check Lena’s apartment  _ and  _ L Corp for booby traps as part of the cleanup, since it’s clear that Lena was one of Lex’s main targets. They’ll have beat Lena there by a mile. Kara trusts them. “I just wanted to offer her a ride,” she finishes lamely for Winn’s benefit, and his smile contains a little too much knowing for Kara’s comfort. “What are you working on?”

“CADMUS had a read on our network this entire time - Lex found a way past our security,” Winn said, looking frustrated. “That’s how they knew Lena was still alive, and that we had a location on them. And how they got in so easily. The good news is, now that I know what he did, I can make absolutely sure,” he pauses for a moment to type something, eyes squinting in concentration, “that no one else ever gets in the same way.”

“Lucky day for the DEO when they snatched you from CatCo,” Kara tells him fondly. “I take full credit for that, of course… you were definitely  _ my  _ discovery.”  She lingers for a moment, watching him work, and then checks her watch and says, “I guess I better go collect Alex from the infirmary and take her home, or she’ll never actually leave,” Kara jokes. “You gonna be OK?”

“Me? Oh, I’m good,” Winn tells her. “I’m not going anywhere, you think the physical clean-up is bad, you should  _ see _ what needs to happen to clean up this network.”

“I’ll make sure someone brings you pizza,” Kara promises, and heads toward the infirmary to the echo of, “and redbull, right?”

Alex waits until they’re both comfortably ensconced on Kara’s couch before she pins Kara with a hard stare. “Alright, spill,” she says. “What are you freaking out about?”

Kara lets her head drop onto her sister’s shoulder, careful to be gentle of Alex’s wrapped ribs, and dedicates a second to being consciously, desperately grateful for everything that Alex is to her.

“I love you,” she says, and Alex’s fingers card gently through her hair as Kara begins to talk.

She tells the entire thing, and feels details of her relationship burbling out of her that she hadn’t realized until right then that she was deliberately keeping secret - or not  _ secret _ , exactly, but private. She talks about inside jokes, and lunch a little too often, and the way it felt when Lena’s gaze lingered on her.

“So you’re gay?” Alex interrupts to ask at one point, and Kara cringes a little, because she doesn’t want Alex to feel like this is one more thing that Kara is taking from her, but Alex just laughs and says, “copycat,” in her most affectionate tone, so that’s OK. Her eyes widen though when Kara gets to the part where Lena kissed her last night - was it really only last night? - and Kara can’t tell exactly what she’s thinking anymore.

“And then we saw that Winn had signaled us and we flew straight to the DEO, and…. now we’re here, and I don’t - Alex, I don’t know what to do. I care about her so much, but there’s just this - this distance between us, and I don’t know how to cross it.”

There’s silence as Kara trails off, and she looks around the apartment. It’s late evening now, and there’s orange light filtering in through the windows, glaring at exactly the angle that makes it most impossible to watch anything on Kara’s tv. Outside, Kara can hear the sounds of evening normalcy stretching for miles, though it’s muted by the closer warm sound of Alex’s heartbeat, of her breathing - she’s not in pain at all, the painkillers that she’d been given in the infirmary are holding up.

“Look, Kara - don’t take this the wrong way,” Alex finally says a little uncomfortably. “But do you think you’re being totally fair to Lena?”

“I’m not  _ mad  _ at her,” Kara says again. She isn’t, is she? But no, she’s being honest with herself - there’s no anger beneath the anger here. There’s just hurt, a loss of trust and closeness, and that seems fair under the circumstances. She opens her mouth to say so, but Alex begins speaking again.

“It’s not that I don’t think Lena betrayed your trust, because she did, and I still kind of want to punch her even though she saved my life in the end. But, Kara - you don’t have a whole lot of relationships in your life, and they’re kind of all-or-nothing, you know? I mean - they’ve had to be. Secret identity, alien powers - there hasn’t exactly been a lot of room for friends you don’t trust.”

“I don’t really know what you mean,” Kara answers, taken aback. “Friends  _ should  _ be people you trust, shouldn’t they?”

“Totally - but it’s OK sometimes for them also to just be people you like. Like - think back to when we were in high school, remember Christina Whalen?” Alex grins, and Kara gives her the response she is expecting, throwing her head back dramatically against the couch.

“Ugh, I try not to.”

“She was awful, right? And you remember she always hung around with, what was that girl’s name…”

“Terri Nolan,” Kara supplies promptly. Both names are well-etched into her memory - their constant snickering had been a confusing and hurtful background noise to her first three years on earth.

“Right, Terri! They were awful to each other at least half the time, right? I mostly remember them from when Terri made out with Christina’s boyfriend and they had that screaming match in the middle of an all-school assembly - we all got out of a presentation by army recruiters thanks to them, remember?”

“Christina tried to pull Terri’s hair out,” Kara remembers fondly, and she and Alex share a sisterly cackle.

“They had fun together anyways though, you know? They liked shopping together, and being bitchy together. Solid foundation for a high school friendship.”

“I … don’t want a relationship with Lena that’s like the relationship between Christina Whalen and Terri Nolan,” Kara protests, starting to see what Alex is getting at.

“Well no, because if you turned into Christina Whalen I’d have to mercy-kill you,” Alex agrees practically, and dodges the friendly pillow Kara throws at her face. “But it’s OK for you to have relationships that aren’t perfect expressions of ultimate trust, you know? It’s OK if Lena sometimes fucks up, and you sometimes fuck up, and sometimes you don’t understand her but you love her anyways.”

“I….” unexpectedly, Kara feels her eyes fill up with tears. “Do you think so?” she asks Alex, practically begging for reassurance, and suddenly realizes how  _ badly  _ this was the sisterly advice she’d actually wanted - how much she wants to just not care about anything that happened, and just let herself have what Lena is offering.

“Your confidence took a beating, right?” Alex offers. “You thought you knew her better than anyone else in the world knew her, and then she surprised you.”

“Yeah,” Kara admits, and flushes, because that’s a less noble way of phrasing it than what she’s been saying in her own head. “Something like that.”

“This isn’t necessarily what I usually tell you,” Alex says teasingly, “but I think you should have a little more faith in yourself. You do know Lena - I’m not sure she knows herself very well, to be honest.”

There’s a wealth of meaning in Alex’s tone, and Kara knows that Alex is keeping something to herself - some thought, some understanding that she doesn’t think it’s her place to share.

“What should I do?” Kara asks. She knows what she  _ wants _ to do - she wants to go over to Lena’s right now, comfort her and confess herself. The thought makes her nervy and excited and panicked. She trusts Alex to tell her if that would be too selfish, if Lena needs space and time.

“I think that all else aside, someone you love is grieving - there’s no reason to leave her alone tonight. You promised her you never would, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Kara smiles. “I did.”

“Go on,” Alex waves her out the door. “Hand me your remote before you leave - I’m going to reacquaint myself with your tivo.”

“If you catch up on Homeland without me I will destroy you with the power of my mind,” Kara promises, and leaps out the window.

She makes a pit stop on the way, changing out of her suit and going into the little bakery near Lena’s apartment that has the really excellent chocolate croissants. If  _ Kara _ lived within delivery distance of that bakery she’d be bankrupt, but she supposes Lena is more used to denying herself daily pleasures than Kara has ever managed to be. Kara also ends up stopping by for a croissant at least four times a week now, so distance hasn’t exactly saved her.

She goes into Lena’s building with the white pastry box in front of her like a shield, and the doorman waves her toward the elevator without bothering to call and ask - he knows by now that Kara Danvers is always welcome.

Kara wonders if he already thinks that she and Lena are dating, and then sets the thought aside and replaces it with concern. Lena shot her brother tonight. The slow-growing certainty that Kara’s company will be welcome doesn’t mean that this is a happy visit.

She knocks at Lena’s door, listens as Lena’s heart skips a beat while she makes her way off the couch and peers at the security camera. She sighs, a long sound that could be dread or resignation or relief, or maybe just exhaustion and not emotion at all, and a moment later unlocks the door.

“Kara, come in,” she says, and then when the door is shut adds, “you could have just come through the window, you know. I’m in on your secret now.”

“I thought you should have a fair chance to pretend you weren’t home,” Kara says, and Lena flashes her a fake, practiced smile.

“Very thoughtful…. And so is that,” she adds, pointing toward the box in Kara’s hand. Her tone is polished and polite, and she has, Kara realizes, put makeup on since she got home, though she can’t be expecting any press until the morning.

But she’d needed a mask.

“Come sit with me,” Kara says gently, and puts a hand on Lena’s back and guides her toward the couch. She takes Lena’s hands in her own and just looks at her, hoping that her love and sympathy are written on her face so Lena can see them without having to go through the agony of hearing it.

“I don’t think I’m quite ready to talk about this yet, Kara,” Lena tells her, her voice still polite and calm, and Kara nods.

“That’s OK - how’s this for a plan?” she offers instead. “What if you go get on the comfiest clothing you own, and we sit on this couch and watch television and hold hands like dorky middle schoolers on their first date?”

Lena’s lips give a reluctant twitch. “That sounds kind of perfect, honestly,” she says, “but I’m really tired - maybe a rain check?”

Her tone is light and dismissive, and it’s clear that she means she wants Kara to leave. But Kara remembers what Alex said, that Lena doesn’t know herself all that well, and it rings true. Kara tries to trust her own instinct, which is that whatever Lena might  _ think _ she wants, she shouldn’t be alone with this. Nobody should.

“Hey - let me stay with you,” she demands softly. “I won’t make you talk - we’ll put a TV show on and you can fall asleep if you want, OK?” Lena stares at her for a long moment, and then her shoulders soften and she lets out a deep breath.

“Alright. If you don’t mind that I won’t be very good company, then…. I’m glad you’re here,” she says, and Kara feels a moment of - something similar to triumph, but softer. Lena hands her the remote, and suddenly everything feels easy and light. “I’m dying to catch up on Homeland - want to find it while I get changed?”

Kara grins. “My sister will kill me if I watch without her,” she says. “So - yes. Absolutely.”

She finds the most recent unwatched episode - Lena is two episodes behind Kara and Alex, actually - and pauses at the beginning, then grabs two plates out of Lena’s kitchen and dumps the pastries onto them, because now that she thinks about it she doubts that Lena has eaten anything all day - maybe not since lunch the day before.

When Lena comes back out, she is wearing gray sweatpants and a college sweatshirt and Kara’s breath catches in her throat because Lena is  _ beautiful _ . The certainty hits her, suddenly, that this is really going to happen. Maybe not tonight - maybe after a long process of healing and communication and setbacks, even. But she and Lena are keeping each other.

Lena curls up on the couch, her feet tucked under herself, and lays her head on Kara’s shoulder as she presses play. “It’s really over, isn’t it,” she murmurs, and Kara cards her finger through Lena’s hair.

“It really is,” she agrees. “Time to start working toward your happy ending, don't you think?”

She reaches out with her other hand, and lets their fingers intertwine. The episode plays softly, and Lena’s head grows heavy against Kara’s shoulder as she falls asleep.


End file.
